A cold drizzly day – apropos for the music of Madeleine Peyroux. The American singer, with a voice reminiscent of Billie Holiday, an earthy and aching sound, who deftly navigates the worlds of jazz, blues, folk, soul, and pop. Her most memorable recording is The Blue Room (2013) which is an homage to Ray Charles’ early 1960s recordings, Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music Volume 1 & 2 (1962).Continue reading →

It is with a certain amount of optimism, levelled with a bit of nervousness, that we normally entered into any new endeavor. Specifically, starting a new job. As I have relocated, recently, from the Pacific Northwest, back to the southwest, my home, I look forward to the orientation process with a new job.Continue reading →

Art follows Nature. I am sure someone said that, at one time or another, but I am not sure who. Nevertheless, this quotation is surely applicable to Andy Goldsworthy, a renown environmental/land artist. Goldsworthy’s recent documentary, Leaning into the Wind (2017), continues to chronicle his life’s work involving creating aesthetic expressions in a natural setting while utilizing only natural or found materials that are usually native to a particular natural setting.Continue reading →

A journey of 1000 miles (actually my journey of 1414 miles) begins with me driving my car, from the Pacific Northwest to the American Southwest. While I enjoy the road, the scenery, for two or third days, I will be understandably preoccupied with reestablishing my life in New Mexico, after 3 and half years in Oregon. Outside of the regular logistics of setting up a home, settling into a new job, getting new car license plates, and new drivers’ license, I am keen to register to vote with the local county clerk’s office – in time for the November mid-term elections.Continue reading →

The season of Autumn has changed since the days of my youth. This is because I was born/raised in the Midwest but I have spent most of my adult years in the Southwest – and now the Northwest. My memories of the fall season are brushed with the deep rustic colors of endless tree-lined streets in the city of St. Louis. So despite, the muted autumn, the Southwest, or the evergreen autumn, the Northwest, of my adult years, I continued to experience, mnemonically, the bittersweet decay of the Midwest.Continue reading →

Since Portland resembles a black and white photograph (see above photo, that I took one November morning 2016), October to May, it is easy to reminisce about the classical black/white photographers of the mid-century. Before the advent of digital photography, prior to 25 years ago, there was the physical or traditional process of photograph-making; that is, non-digital cameras, light meters, tripods, film, negatives, and photographic paper. Continue reading →

We get an early start – there is free admission before 10.00a, this time of year (April), at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens in SE Portland near Reed College. The nearly 10 acre bucolic gardens/woodlands features a riot of Rhododendron and Azaleas (members of the same genus or the same class of flowering flora) as well as a variety of trees, plants, birds, and water fowl.Continue reading →

A solitary day, autumn, several blocks north of downtown, in Oregon’s capital, I am on my way to work, while driving southbound on liberty street southeast, which is a one way passage into downtown, and while navigating the grey cotton light; the houses and structures on both sides of the street are witnesses to the three lanes of heavy traffic that flow by ..Continue reading →

The unveiling of the recent official portraits of President Obama and the First Lady, for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, has been cause for a vigorous discussion (goggle ‘official Obama portraits’). The First Lady’s portrait was painted by Amy Sherald, an artist residing in Baltimore MD, while the President’s portrait was painted by Kelinde Wiley who is based in New York City.Continue reading →